School-Live Episode 3

Review:

After my question last episode of whether Megu-nee was actually real of just another of Yuki’s delusions, this episode begins from the overly friendly, super pink haired teacher’s perspective but we’ve gone to the beginning of the zombie outbreak.

If anything, this episode is designed to bring about ambiguity as to Megu-nee’s existence. She clearly was a real teacher and known to three of the students prior to the zombie outbreak and she didn’t die in the initial onslaught of the school, but whether she is still alive is most definitely brought into question by the way this episode is delivered.

I’d more or less decided she must be really involved in the actual discussion when Kurumi delivered the line that a tent for four was big enough for all of them. And then a few things clicked in my head. At no point during the ‘meal’ does Megu-nee eat or drink anything from the plate set in front of her. At no point does anyone other than Yuki initiate a conversation or respond to a comment from Megu-nee until Yuki has. The other girls thank her and address comments to her, but only after a cue from Yuki as to what she may have said. This actually means they could still reveal that she is actually alive and you couldn’t say she wasn’t (though that would make a lot of these interactions really strange) or they could reveal she’s no longer with the girls and that would also make perfect sense.

Given we see her writing her ‘will’ and then she the screen rolls and fades to black and given the very strange interactions, including Yuki telling the other girls that she was back from patrol and being the first to move after Megu-nee apparently left the tent again, I’m still voting for her not being alive but that is just my guess at this point.

As to an actual review of the episode, this is pretty standard beginning of zombie plague narration as normal teacher goes about normal day with increasing awareness of weirdness (sirens, persistent messages from mother, some increasingly alarming news reports, finally slaughter and death), followed by girls playing make believe camp out in tent. That weird mix of horror and slice of life continues to work really well in this series and it all continues to be very intriguing if only because of some of the clever choices being made in how they reveal or conceal certain points of information.

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Thanks,

Karandi James.